New York Man Believes He Owns a Missing Michelangelo

A man in New York state thinks he has a painting by Michelangelo that hung for years in his living room.

Martin Kober has moved the painting to secure storage while he works on getting the 9-by-25-inch (48-by-64-centimeter) painting of Jesus with the Virgin Mary authenticated.

Kober's great-great-grandfather's sister-in-law was given the work by a German baroness, according to the family.

Art experts have deemed the painting as not of the quality of the master, or a copy by another artist of one his more famous drawings.

But some European art historians have backed the work as by Michelangelo. "The coldness of American institutions is unexplainable to this painting," Italian art scholar Antonio Forcellino told the AP in an email.